The expansion further strengthens the company’s position in the M2M, telematics and wireless markets in the region.

“The appointment of Mr. Ohshida and Mr. Strandin is part of Telenor Connexion’s continued geographic expansion initiative to increase our presence in key growth markets. Mr. Ohshida’s expertise in the region and strong technical and sales competence will further strengthening our local presence and support business growth”,

The expanded presence in Japan and South East Asia will allow Telenor Connexion to increase its level of  proactive service awareness to customers and partners across Asia and deliver advanced value added services. Telenor Connexion already serves a number of key customers in Asia with world- class premium embedded connectivity solutions, spanning multiple vertical markets such as automotive, asset management and security. Examples of customers applying the comp

Telenor Connexion.Based years of experience within M2M communications, we realise the need to support and enhance all phases of our customers’ product life-cycles, said Gwenn Bjornstad Larsson, Chief Marketing Officer, Telenor Connexion, when met during a recent interview with Rani Wemel, Asia Pacific Correspondent for Techistan.com at Communicasia, Singapore.

Telenor Connexion Thomas Strandin, appointed Head of Sales for the Asia Pacific region who was

About Telenor Connexion

Telenor Connexion, the world leader in premium M2M solutions for business and lifecritical applications, today announced the expansion of its business developmentteam in Japan and Malaysia to meet the growing demand for M2M services in the Asiaregion.
The Tokyo office established in 2010 is now expanded with a local team. Mr. KentaroOhshida has been appointed Account Liaison Director and contact point for the Japanoffice. Mr. Ohshida brings extensive experience from a major Japanese consumerelectronics manufacturer, where he served for almost a decade as a strong interfacewith multinational-based customer accounts.
“The appointment of Mr. Ohshida and Mr. Strandin is part of Telenor Connexion’scontinued geographic expansion initiative to increase our presence in key growthmarkets. Mr. Ohshida’s expertise in the region and strong technical and salescompetence will further strengthening our local presence and support business growth”,says Per Simonsen, CEO at Telenor Connexion.

Per Simonsen, CEO at Telenor Connexion The expanded presence in Japan and South East Asia will allow Telenor Connexionto increase its level of proactive service awareness to customers and partners acrossAsia and deliver advanced value added services. Telenor Connexion already servesa number of key customers in Asia with world- class premium embedded connectivitysolutions, spanning multiple vertical markets such as automotive, asset managementand security. Examples of customers applying the company’s business and life criticalapplications to achieve cost savings, flexibility and improved services are Nissan and Hitachi.

Gwenn Larsson, Head of Marketing, Telenor Connexion Based years of experience within M2M communications, we realise the need to support
and enhance all phases of our customers’ product life-cycles, said Gwenn BjornstadLarsson, Chief Marketing Officer, Telenor Connexion, when met during a recentinterview with Rani Wemel, Asia Pacific Correspondent for Techistan.com atCommunicasia, Singapore.

Thomas Strandin, Head of Sales for the Asia Pacific, Telenor Connexion Thomas Strandin, appointed Head of Sales for the Asia Pacific region who was present at Communicasia further added that, Telenor’s work methodology, coupledwith their proven experience and dedicated M2M service platforms form the basis forembedding longterm and reliable connectivity solutions for business and life criticalapplications. He said, among their global customers are Daimler, Volvo, Securitas,Scania, Qualcomm Enterprise Services and Hitachi have found Telenor’s solution to bewell-suited and leverages on the potential of embedded connectivity to serve their endusers globally. He is looking at enabling autometery to Tenaga Nasional (Malaysia’sElectricity Board) and the likes in the region and also help to enable companies in thehealth and logistics sectors in the region.
Telenor Connexion is wholly owned by Telenor Group, one of the world’s major mobileoperators. Telenor serves more than 60 million mobile subscribers in Asia and a total of203 million subscribers worldwide.

Telenor Connexion is the leading provider of premium M2M solutions for businessand life critical applications, regardless of the vertical market. Building on more than10 years of M2M experience, Telenor Connexion provides customers with toolsthat allow for full control of status, location and performance of their connecteddevices.Telenor Connexion has provided reliable, international M2M solutions toa number of global customers such as Volvo, Nissan, Daimler, TomTom, Omron,Scania, Qualcomm Enterprise Services, Hitachi and Securitas. The companywas established in 2008 and originates from the successful M2M businesswithin TelenorSweden. Telenor Connexion is wholly owned by Telenor Group,one of the world’s major mobile operators. For more information please visit www.telenorconnexion.com

CommunicAsia, Singapore, 21 June 2011 – Arantech a provider of Customer Experience Management (CEM) systems to communications service providers (CSPs) worldwide, announced today that StarHub has implemented the Arantech touchpoint™ product suite and openplatform ProAction solution. StarHub has implemented the integrated CEM system to improve the overall experience of its subscribers.

StarHub is based in Singapore and it is the second largest wireless operator focused on the Island State. Singapore is one of the most developed and affluent markets in the Asia-Pacific region. Mobile penetration has reached 150 per cent, data usage is increasing and more than 60 per cent of the StarHub Mobile post-paid subscriber base has adopted smartphones.

Chan Kin Hung, Head, Products & Solutions, StarHub, explained: “In the highly competitive Singapore mobile market we deployed Arantech’s CEM to proactively identify customer issues, which allows us to respond to such issues in a timely and appropriate manner.”

He added: “We selected Arantech on the basis that its CEM tools would enable us to deliver an excellent customer experience and that the data extracted would be accessible to multiple departments within the organisation, from the network engineers to the customer service teams.”

Brian Carroll, CEO of Arantech, commented: “StarHub is a leading advocate of CEM and how it can be used to eliminate common problems associated with customer experience, such as dropped calls or badly configured handsets. StarHub is also aware of the value that CEM represents in terms of developing a better understanding of its subscriber base.”

Arantech touchpoint™ enables CSPs to gain an enhanced level of service visibility and a deeper insight into their subscribers experience of network services, allowing them to protect themselves from churn and ARPU decline. Arantech’s touchpoint™ CEM solution does this by building and storing real time experience customer metrics for every subscriber in the network, which are visualized through a set of rich user interfaces and business intelligence tools. Data analysis is typically restricted to network engineers and IT teams, Arantech’s openplatform ProAction, provides an interface that non-technical staff can use to capture, analyse and act upon events that impact on customer experience. This enables the operator to deal with network, service or device issues rapidly before the subscriber experiences any impairment in service delivery.

Arantech is attending the CommunicAsia conference in Singapore (21st – 24th June), the company will be located at stand No BN4 01.

About Arantech

Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Arantech supplies a suite of Customer Experience Management (CEM) software solutions and CEM consultancy services to help telecom operators derive maximum benefit from their existing network infrastructure, customer and service management systems. Arantech’s client base includes four of the six largest mobile operator groups in the world, serving in excess of 300 million mobile subscribers.

www.arantech.com
For more information, please contact:
Annette Rochford
Marketing Manager
Arantech
Tel: +353 1 210 0100
E-mail: arochford@arantech.com

Babel PR for Arantech
Matt Humphries or James Beattie
Tel: +44(0)207 434 5550
Email: arantech@babelpr.com

Vu TelePresence® shares an ideal way to say “NO” to impersonal voice conference calls and unnecessary expensive and exhaustive travel. For many reasons, it is a better way to do business. For example, it provides a luxurious experience of HD quality video among all parties on calls — and even, surprisingly on low bandwidth and a low budget.

A major part of their aim is to replace one of the most revolutionary inventions ever: the Telephone.

Vu TelePresence and their CEO Devita Saraf, wish to transform the way businesses connect with their clients by replacing everyday voice calls with face-to-face interactions in true high definition quality. The convenience of HD quality conferencing with eye contact, life-like images, and distortion free sound are just a few of the advantages.

The company has the ability to display presentations, documents, browsers, and any application. It also provides an excellent platform for events such ones recently planned with PGA* and also in large numbers of participants such as in a Web conference.

Techistan’s technology entrepreneur Suzanne Bowen grabbed the opportunity to interview Devita Saraf of Vu TelePresence who is herself a two-time founder and entrepreneur. A third female entrepreneur Christine Oneto of GirlsinTech recently wrote about Devita, “Her amazing journey from USC undergraduate to corporate leader is one I am lucky to begin following.”

Topics discussed and a summary follow, but if the reader (you) prefers to listen, feel free to click on the “Podcast” link just ahead. Listen and keep working on other things at your office, home, in your car, while waiting in line anywhere …

Part one of the audio podcast with Devita Saraf of Vu Telepresence:

Part two of the audio podcast with Devita Saraf of Vu Telepresence:

On verveonline.com, Ms. Saraf does show her well-deserved confidence when asked about being a young woman in a male-dominated field. She replied, “Since everyone is highly educated they treat me with respect…and of course, my visiting card commands deference.”

So true, Devita! She was born in India with a family who has a successful history in business. She studied in USA with an emphasis in marketing. Ms. Saraf just has a natural inclination for entrepreneurship and even began testing her ideas as a teen-ager.

Vu Telepresence, her newest company, is a part of the Zenith Group.

Vu Technologies, Ms. Saraf’s first company, is a luxury technology. It is a high-end television brand targeted to India — the youngest television brand in India, but much more premium than older brands. Thinking on a more global plan, she next, launched Vu Telepresence. It is headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA. in the USA. The co-founder is Devita Saraf’s brother Akash Saraf. Together, they have taken the brand to increasingly popularity in Asia Pacific, the Middle East, India, and Europe. Singapore is next.

An interesting fact is that Vu Telepresence was created with a codec that the company developed on its own. It allows compression of data, overcoming problems regarding bandwidth, jitter, and other issues. The service delivers in HD quality.

The Vu Telepresence customers are in the industries of medicine, law, enterprise and business, those with remote workers, education, and hospitality.

Using an HD quality video service such as Vu Telepresence makes users not want to go back to just audio conference calls. People can see each other’s facial expressions and body language to understand more about the conversation taking place, for example. Plus, the service includes document sharing, too.

Devita says, “Another thing that we have done that no one else has done in the telepresence industry is what we call the ‘Vu Telepoint.’ It is a physical point in a business center room, about 120 square feet. Go to VuTelepoint.com. Choose a location you are at. Then choose a location of where you want to view someone at. Choose the time for all to be online. Then, just walk in and use it … It’s a great tool for interviewing those I want to hire or for conducting a sales review or maybe to see samples of a particular product and to be able to talk about them while browsing.”

Vu Telepresence has 60 operational Vu Telepoints across the USA. The company expects this number to increase to 400 by the end of 2010. The service has partnered with India’s largest national telecommunications provider Bharti Airtel to build new Vu Telepoints.

Why do so many thousands such as Vu Telepresence and DIDX choose to participate in CommunicAsia, a conference based in Singapore and this year 2011 from June 21-24?

Devita Saraf reaffirms what many say … that Singapore is a hub for technology business. The Zenith Group has had an office in Singapore since the early 1980s. There are just so many opportunities to meet with current and potential high quality resellers, dealers, and even end-users. There is this assurance of congregrating with and among the top performers and innovators in technology.

Another of the many reasons is the fact that for example, companies like Vu Telepresence need to be able to give demonstrations of their products.

Last, Devita mentions that CommunicAsia does a great job bringing together the diverse markets throughout Asia.

Ms. Saraf says, “Asia is a diverse and populous continent. We felt that a product like ours … Vu Telepresence … with HD video conferencing that works well even on low quality bandwidth is perfect for the Asian market. It’s a market where you may have some companies with headquarters in Singapore with a good broadband connection, but he needs to communicate with his back offices in Malaysia, China and India where he may not have the same infrastructure and bandwidth. Then, what is he going to do? In many cases, they may not be able to pull up the phone lines from any certain location from where they are.”

She adds, “We have done in our specialty is to help both sides have the same video conferencing experience as you may have with, for example, Polycom, but on lower bandwidth. So, no matter where you are, what your challenges are in your local broadband, you will not have a loss in quality. I understand this. We have the best Internet in our offices, but where our factories are … there is nothing. This is one reason we are so successful. We don’t address large companies and their national and global footprints. We have also created something new for the small and middle-sized company businessmen who say that they have to work within the constraints of the infrastructure in the area that I am.”

Vu Telepresence has truly revolutionalized the way people do business. Conferences such as CommunicAsia give companies such as Devita’s to connect with Asians who may not participate in other important global events but also Americans, Australians, Europeans and Middle Easterners.

Back to video conferencing, how is video conferencing changing the way people do business and work to reach institutional and person goals?

Many hospitals are using video conferencing and telepresence to meet the needs of staff and patients. For example, it obviously works better than strictly voice telephony for deaf people.

In other cases, schools will share issues such as the fact that they do not have the best teachers where they are physically located. Telepresence can increase meaningful interactivity between students in those schools with excellent teachers at remote locations.

Telepresence has immense potential whether for government, education, healthcare, etc. But … Vu is the only company that has been able to democratize it. Their products are more affordable and have been created with these variable usages in mind.

Meet with inspiring individuals and organizations who Techistan has interviewed such as Devita Saraf of Vu Telepresence, Russell Perry of Emerson Networks, and Simon Yeung of Comba Telecom at CommunicAsia. Sign up to sponsor, exhibit and participate at http://www.communicasia.com.

Rich Tehrani of TMCNET interviews Akash Saraf, who is Devita Saraf’s cofounder of Vu Telepresence.

Movers and shakers (companies who dare to claim tomorrow together in regards to the empowerment of consumers and organizations with cutting edge IP technologies and communications products, services, and ideas) converge upon CommunicAsia June 21-24, 2011 in the tech-savvy business hub of Singapore. More than six months away, and the event has attracted almost hundreds of exhibitors to be announced soon.

Click the video to start planning your company’s involvement! No one will laugh if you start dancing to the music and thinking about the way CommunicAsia will help your company reach its financial, development, infrastructure, client and market goals.

Sign up at http://www.communicasia.com to sponsor, exhibit, present and participate in many ways now. Tell them Techistan referred you.

Dear VIP, you!

Quality beats quantity any day. When inspired, do it at that moment and not like clockwork … because you have to. This is why letters from the Techistan Editor in Chief (me) will be sporadic in appearance but with something to say and share when published. Anyone notice the concentration of news and opinions and innovations we share regarding IP (internet protocol-based) communications?

The provision of telephone service is in a volatile and exciting flux. At least one third of the content of Techistan is dedicated to voice, video and other IP and non-IP communications services. Our magazine, your magazine Techistan is not about creating the biggest behemoth commercial engine. It’s about collaborating with you to make the world around each of us a better place no matter where we are…

Which is where “telephone service” fits perfectly. The Internet itself, smart phones, other cell phones, mobile applications, GPS and other location services, and virtual phone lines make us all more equal than ever and bring all our VIP closer, whether on our physical side of Earth or the other.

Whether the reader is a user, provider, developer or entrepreneur in areas that involve telecommunications, each has probably had experience with porting a phone number from one provider to another provider.

In the recent cretaceous period that still insists to hang on, I moved from right on the Pensacola Bay to another location near the Pensacola International Airport. When I did, my POTS (plain old telephone service) provider refused to let me take my “phone number” with me even though I would continue using their service. What did I do? I ported the phone number to one our own *DIDX VoIP phone service provider customers, so I could continue to have the same phone number that all my friends, family, and business partners were familiar with. I dropped the POTS for good.

Enter … LNP. What is it? It is an acronym that abbreviates Local Number Portability. It is the empowerment of you and me to keep our local phone number even when we switch who we pay for our phone service.

The power is in your hands. Ask your voice (and sometimes video) service provider if they are a member of any organization that lets you port in or out your phone number and if yes, ask what is the geographical area that this porting applies to? (Remember, for example you may be porting out from ABC company and porting into Freedom company.)

Can we meet you in person? Check our recommended events in every corner of the world at http://www.techistan.com/2009/10/15/techistan-recommends-global-events/.

At Techistan, we aim to collaborate with you in promoting information sharing, necessary debate, deserving praise, business development and positively enriching social change.

We appreciate you.

Sincerely yours,

Suzanne Bowen
Editor in Chief
Techistan

Some websites to study about LNP:

Neustar, http://www.npac.com/

Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_number_portability

FCC, http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/NumberPortability/

DIDX, http://www.didx.net/lnp/

Voip-info, http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Local+Number+Portability

Meet our CEO Rehan Allahwala where he is scheduled to present on “From Startup to World Changemaker in the Cloud” at Hyderabad’s Cloud Computing Summit and Hong Kong’s Cloud Computing World Forum this month! You can vote for him at Mashable Awards 2010 now, too.

… Need to make your presence known to over 2800 individual and corporate readers of Techistan? Get your innovation in front. Share your news and announcements. Sponsor a beat. Place your logo among the online kinship Techistan from the East and West, South and North, online and offline movers and shakers. Contact the Techistan Team !

Muneeb Iqbal, Techistan reporter, interviews David Erikson, President of Free Conferencing Corporation about the great FreeConferenceCall service and what it’s like to visit Singapore for the first time, hot! Visit www.freeconferencecall.com.

KUALA LUMPUR. 15 July, 2010: Ericsson Malaysia, Telekom Malaysia Research & Development (TM R&D) and Multimedia University (MMU) today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for:

• the collaboration in showcasing digital home solutions on MMU’s premises with TM R&D’s provision of IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) connectivity, and

• the development of applications by MMU students and staff, with training provided by Ericsson, and assessment of commercial viability by Ericsson and TM R&D.

The MoU signing was witnessed by Datuk Dr Halim Shafie, Chairman of MMU and TM.

The scope of the collaboration under the terms of the MoU includes the design, implementation and maintenance of the various digital home solutions as well as the content and application developer programs for Ericsson IMS and Ericsson eStore. The IMS or IP Multimedia Subsystem is an open-standards based solution that enables the seamless integration and interoperability of various mobile and desktop applications over broadband.

An example of an IMS application is where consumers can watch content on IP-based TV while having a chat session with other viewers at the same time. Another example is what Ericsson refers to as “place shifting”, where a viewer of IP-based TV is able to watch his favourite program in one place and transfer it to another location or device.

Krishnakumar Guda, President of Ericsson Malaysia, said: “This is Ericsson Malaysia’s first such strategic alliance with TM R&D and MMU to provide a showcase of various IMS-based digital home applications, such as ‘place shifting’ and ‘time shifting’, allowing users to share content and media from their home system anytime, anywhere on their mobile devices. Secondly, MMU students and staff will have the opportunity to become IMS application developers and distribute on our Ericsson eStore, which provides the opportunity to market commercially viable applications to 2 billion potential customers worldwide,” he added.

“We are extremely excited about the opportunity to work with Ericsson and MMU on this IMS-based initiative, as it allows us to meaningfully explore and develop forefront technologies for the future, ” said Dr Shahruddin Muslimin, Chief Executive Officer of TM R&D. “We believe the join development of applications with MMU and the use of our IMS platform at TM R&D to test these applications, will help MMU develop a strong pool of talents in solution development and acquire the necessary industrial exposure.” He added that apart from working with MMU on new projects, TM R&D has also planned to port some of its unified communication and collaboration (UCC) solutions, such as IPv6-enabled Video Conferencing and uNme (you-and-me), security and surveillance, etc, to the IMS platform.”

Prof. Dr. Zaharin Yusoff, President of MMU said, “This is an excellent opportunity for the students and staff of MMU to venture into joint R&D work with Ericsson and TM R&D in digital home solution and IMS application development, and to obtain international recognition and even monetary benefits for their work via the Ericsson eStore! At MMU, we truly believe in encouraging our students to be innovators and to develop their talents, hence to be able to partner with Ericsson and TM R&D to provide training and open up global avenues will definitely help achieve our goal.”

“At Ericsson, we aim to innovate to empower people, business and society. As market leaders in telecommunications, we need to take the initiative to drive creativity and innovation in order for Malaysia to move into a high value, high income economy.

Ericsson has created similar initiatives in Sweden and around the world, working with the telecommunication service providers as well as universities to produce not only commercially-viable applications, but more importantly, empowering the next generation of innovators. We take that further by creating platforms such as the Ericsson eStore to create incentives for such innovations,” Guda added.

About Ericsson

Ericsson is the world’s leading provider of technology and services to telecom operators. Ericsson is the leader in 2G, 3G and 4G mobile technologies, and provides support for networks with over 2 billion subscribers and has the leading position in managed services. The company’s portfolio comprises mobile and fixed network infrastructure, telecom services, software, broadband and multimedia solutions for operators, enterprises and the media industry. The Sony Ericsson and ST-Ericsson joint ventures provide consumers with feature-rich personal mobile devices. Ericsson is advancing its vision of being the “prime driver in an all-communicating world” through innovation, technology, and sustainable business solutions. Working in 175 countries, more than 80,000 employees generated revenue of SEK 206.5 billion (USD 27.1 billion) in 2009. Founded in 1876 with the headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, Ericsson is listed on OMX NASDAQ, Stockholm and NASDAQ New York. 

www.ericsson.com  
www.twitter.com/ericssonpress
www.facebook.com/technologyforgood
www.youtube.com/ericssonpress 

About TMR&D

TMR&D, being at the forefront for research and development activities in TM, plays a leading role for new network and leading edge technologies. This role is assumed through designing, fabrication and the state-of-the-art technologies for telecommunications industries. For further information, please visit www.tmrnd.com.my.

About MMU

Established in 1996, Multimedia University (MMU) is the first private Malaysian university. It was set up by Telekom Malaysia Berhad. Now in its 14th year, MMU is admired for its innovative approaches to education, offering courses in the areas of Creative Multimedia, Engineering, Information Technology, Management, Law, Accounting, Business Studies, Economics, Finance, and Bio-Medical Sciences. Currently, MMU has a population of more than 21,000 students, 4,516 of which come from 79 countries. Furthermore, 22,840 graduates have been produced from MMU’s 10 convocations, and recent studies show that 96% of MMU graduates secure employment within six months of completing their studies.

www.mmu.edu.my

www.twitter.com/mmu2020

By Asia Pacific Correspondent : Rani Wemel
LTT Global Brands | 14 Jalan SS3/33, 47300 Petaling Jaya, Selangor DE, Malaysia
T: 03-7877 7023 | F: 03-78777806 |
rani@LTTCOM.com / rani@techistan.com

After recording this interview, Suzanne Bowen had an idea that Max and Jonathan should consider adding another service where they assist Canadian companies to merge with USA companies, especially where each fills service and resource gaps of each other. Download the audio podcast to your mp3 player, netbook, Droid, iPhone or whatever you use and listen too! It’s on iTunes too.

VoIP Merger 2010 Comtel-Networks and AstraQom

Suzanne Bowen: Today we have with us the President of AstraQom Jonathan Sowah and also Max Glucksmann who is the new Chief Technical Officer. Welcome to both of you. Happy to have you with us.
Jonathan Sowah: Thank you very much. Hello!

Max Glucksmann: Hi Suzanne.
Suzanne Bowen: Astraqom is such a cool sounding name. Would tell us about the startup of AstraQom and the basic events that have led to this point?
Jonathan Sowah: The name AstraQom reflects the fact that we are based in Quebec. There’s a little French influence. Astra exudes a feeling of universal. The “Q” in our name stands for our Quebec origin. The “Qom” shows the company is focused on communications.
We started a little over a year ago. My family and I immigrated here from England and saw the huge potential in the telecom sector. AstraQom was first set up with the idea of providing a customized dialup Internet service. Then we added DSL.
At that point,  Max and I started working together but from separate companies, to develop some PBX solutions. One thing led to another to where we stand now.
In Canada we are providing DSL services to four provinces (Ontario, Quebec, B.C., and Alberta) and also to 37 states in the USA. Some of our business for voice is also in Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Suzanne Bowen: I like the idea of the “Q.” I’m looking at your website and see you provide several different types of services and have grown fast in the last year.
Would you share some about the good but also tough times? Maybe an anecdote?
Jonathan Sowah: Chuckles… no matter what we have had to keep our focus straight. People are used to the Big Boys. By the time I was born, Bell was already there. What happens after a while when you are new but good, then the customers begin to realize you know what you are doing. They will worry that you are a “fly by night” sort of business.
Those who own the market want to bully you. In the beginning we got a message from one of the big players that I should take my money elsewhere.
This was our biggest challenge.
Suzanne Bowen: Because you are smaller and more lithe, you are a position to meet the specific needs of your clients and to provide better, more focused customer service than the bigger guys. So maybe no wonder they tell the little guys, “Oh, go away.”
(Interviewer and interviewees share some laughter.)
Suzanne Bowen: Would you share with us some information about your plans for the future?
Jonathan Sowah: Sure, in fact, Max, do you want to take this one?
Max Glucksmann: Regarding the subject of reaching the customers… we handle each customer as individual basis and unique needs. PBX, IVRs, specific applications… we want them to be completely satisified. We have a point of advantage there.
Suzanne Bowen: Would you share more about your plans and services available?
Max Glucksmann: We are developing PBX services like conference rooms, ring groups, traditional phone service. We have a complete management system online where the users can take advantage, much better than a traditional phone company. We’ve recently added a new market.
We can’t share much about it yet, but it will be an integration of some special services we ave not shared before with wireless operators and voice over IP platforms.  We won’t be connecting over traditional SIP dialers, WiFi, or 3G connections. We’ll be directly connected to with the wireless operator dialplan. We’re looking at unified communications.
Jonathan Sowah: Do you also want to quickly mention the Conference Room System we are planning to use the DIDX platform for local access numbers? 
Max Glucksmann: We will have new features because of using DIDX phone numbers. We can have different people from different countries call in. This will be a local phone call for each person calling in. We’ll be able to record the conferences, store the recordings online through our GUIs which are using right now for this podcast.
Suzanne Bowen: Wow, the quality that I am hearing is very good. Recently AstraQom participated in CommunicAsia in Singapore, a conference that our DIDXchange and Techistan were a media partner and press agent for.  What plans do you have for other ways to meet face to face with your current and potential clients, partners and vendors? I know you will be at ITEXPO West in L.A.
 

Jonathan Sowah: We plan to return to CommunicAsia next year. It is important for us to let people know what we are doing.  We like the way DIDX does this. You guys have good taste in selecting the right events to share with your membership. We plan to participate in as many as you have partnered with as possible.
Suzanne Bowen: I appreciate the compliments. We do work hard at DIDX to …
Jonathan Sowah: That’s very true.
Suzanne Bowen: Share conferences that we think will be really good for our DIDX members and the IP communications industry in general. I also appreciate your mentioning that you use DIDX DIDs for this conference and your conferencing solutions.   We look forward to having you work with us at conferences and know that is as important to meet face to face as it is in voice, video, IM and email. It builds more of a trust.
Suzanne Bowen: How can potential vendors, resellers, and customers contact you? But first, is there anything else you would like to share?
Jonathan Sowah: Let’s talk about how Comtel-Networks and AstraQom ended up merging.
Suzanne Bowen: I think is a pretty exciting story.
Jonathan Sowah: I got to know Max while discussing collaboration in the “phone sector.” He’s a good man, smart, hard-working, very focused guy. As time progressed, it became easier for us to find more and more common ground. The vision became virtually the same. So, one day I popped the question. He accepted it. For small startups like ours, the idea of going alone is very tempting, but when you find another company that shares a vision and finds opportunity to work together, and you see a win-win relationship…
That’s what we have. We have created a situation where AstraQom is in Canada and the USA. For us it was the best decision.
Max, do you want to comment on this?
Max Glucksmann: First, I want to thank you for the good words. AstraQom and Comtel-Networks is a good thing because like my company Comtel-Networks was more specialized in the phone sector and Jonathan brought his extensive background in other complimentary services like VPS systems, dialup connections, and DSL. We complemented each other well. Since we’ve been working together, everything is flowing more smoothly. I am grateful that we achieved the merger.
Suzanne Bowen: I think it is a superb combination. Some people have heard me say, “Don’t try to beat your competition that you admire. Buy them.” I am sort of joking but not really.
I see something else here. Something else you guys bring together is fluent spoken, written, and comprehension of French, Spanish, and English. That is a huge advantage you now have.
How about your website address and what are the best ways for listeners to contact you?
Jonathan Sowah: Let’s start with www.astraqom.com, www.comtel-pbx.com, www.comtel-networks.com. Contact us on phone in Canada at 1-819-306-0701, especially if you prefer to speak in English or French or our USA phone at 1-954-324-2626 if you prefer to speak in English and/or Spanish.
Suzanne Bowen: Really appreciate your taking the time to share about AstraQom, its history, interesting story of the good and tough times, your plans, the services, conferences we can find you at, and the exciting news about Comtel and AstraQom merging, a dream that many IP communications startups and entrepreneurs dream of.
Contact AstraQom at http://www.astraqom.com! Thank you to Jonathan and Max.

Facebook, the world’s most popular social network with those in the middle to high income bracket, are showing signs of more attention to the East side of Earth. Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Russia, China and South Korea are some that appear to be the target for increasing user base. For example, Facebook has the potential to go from the current 500 million users to 1 billion users. Skype recently was the keynote speaker for **CommunicAsia and made a big debut in Asia for conferences with a large exhibit area that wowed 10s of 1000s who attended the popular Singapore conference.

Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke at the annual Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in France in the last week of June 1010, Zuckerberg about Facebook’s potential to be the leader in social-networking in the East.

“We are down to four countries that we are not the leading social network in. Now, for the first time, we are focused on doing some specific things in specific countries,” Zuckerberg said.

The four countries are China, Japan, Russia (where ICQ is on almost every PC, Apple and Linux computer and recently purchased by Russian billionaires) and South Korea.

Zuckerberg’s goals is to be the first social networking platform with billions of users in every area of Earth. Some say Twitter, is Facebook’s closest competitor. There are favorites already in the precious four, Tencent QQ in China, Mixi in Japan, Vkontakte in Russia and Hangul in South Korea.

Zuckerberg shares how mobile phone use (smart phones in particular) are the key to social networking use, “We are getting our first crop of countries now that have more mobile usage than web usage. I think most people think it’s only a matter of time before that starts happening more universally.”

During CommunicAsia, Skype was added to Sony Ericsson Symbian handsets and more handsets are set to follow soon. Skype can be installed by end of June 2010 to any Sony Erisson smartphone using *Symbian. Skype and Facebook can be accessed on many cell phones via Wi Fi, 3G, GPRS, or Edge. The combination lets users share pictures, videos, other files, import contacts to address books, read friends’ newsfeeds and more.

Find out more about:
Symbian at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian_OS
Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/techistan
Skype at http://www.skype.com

**Techistan was a media partner for CommunicAsia 2008, 2009 and 2010.

SINGAPORE, 18 JUNE 2010 – 55,150 local and international industry visitors, conference speakers and delegates, exhibiting staff and members of the media participated in a full week of activities at CommunicAsia2010 and BroadcastAsia2010.  The event saw more overseas visitors this year, with visitors from key Asia Pacific markets like China, India, Japan and Korea all seeing double digit growth from a year ago.

“The increase in overseas attendees, particular those from the Asia Pacific region, reflects the anticipated rebound in IT and media spending and how companies are ready to invest for further growth in Asia,” said Mr Stephen Tan, Chief Executive of show organiser, Singapore Exhibition Services (SES).  “This strongly cements CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia’s position as the top global trade event for the Infocomm, broadcasting and media industries in Asia.”

“Looking ahead to 2011, we expect companies from across the globe to continue leveraging our events to reach their intended audiences in Asia and showcase their latest products and solutions.”

Breakthrough products and technologies premiered at CommunicAsia2010

CommunicAsia2010 provided a strategic venue for many exciting launches by exhibitors from Asia, such as Altek Corporation, DIGILINK, NTT DOCOMO and ZTE, as well as other leading international players like Inmarsat, Skype and Yahoo!.

NTT DOCOMO showcased their latest smartphones for the Japan market, including their new separable phone.  Yahoo! showcased the new Alcatel One Touch Net mobile, its first handset fully integrated with Yahoo! applications and designed to provide an integrated approach to communicating using a Yahoo! platform.  Skype, a first time exhibitor at CommunicAsia2010, showcased several applications at their booth and announced the availability of Skype on three Sony Ericsson smartphones based on the Symbian platform.  Inmarsat’s IsatPhone Pro service, its first global handheld satellite phone, premiered worldwide at the show this week.

ZTE unveiled the ZXY10 T700, the first integrated HD videoconferencing terminal.  In addition, mobile application stores were also unveiled by Infindo, Telekom Malaysia (TM), M1, NTT DOCOMO and Research in Motion (RIM) among others.

Spotlight on 3D at BroadcastAsia2010

3D technologies dominated the exhibition at BroadcastAsia2010.  International and local exhibitors such as AV8 Media, Cine Equipment, Harris Corporation, Panasonic and Sony Electronics announced their latest professional equipment, solutions and technologies for broadcasters and production companies.

The ‘live’ 3D showcase by exhibitors Broadcast Pro, Dayang, Evertz, Panasonic, Maestro, Ross Video and SeaChange brought 3D to life through the specially created content and gave visitors a feel of the upcoming technology that Singapore consumers would soon enjoy as the commencement of 3D trials were announced on the first day of BroadcastAsia2010.

Panasonic, a regular exhibitor at BroadcastAsia, presented an action-packed display of live Muay Thai and entertainment demonstrations that were recorded in 3D and instantaneously beamed on projectors above the booth.  Panasonic showcased their latest range of professional equipment and camcorders, including the world’s first professional, fully-integrated Full HD 3D camcorder that records to SD card media.  Sony Electronics returned to the show with cutting-edge 3D and high-definition (HD) broadcast and production solutions.  The company also unveiled Singapore’s first HD OB trailer built for national broadcaster MediaCorp at BroadcastAsia2010.

There were close to 2,000 exhibiting companies from 57 countries and regions at CommunicAsia2010 and BroadcastAsia2010.

Exhibitors and visitors underline Asia’s vast potential for growth

From the state-of-the-art in 3D to the latest in enterprise and mobile technologies and solutions, exhibitors and visitors alike were impressed with the business opportunities in the region as Asia continues to remain resilient with vast potential for growth.

“CommunicAsia2010 enabled us to meet with over 300 potential and existing customers who hail from regions of Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East.  This is a significant increase of more than 40 per cent compared to around 200 meetings we had at the 2009 show.

Our participation at CommunicAsia2010 has been extremely worthwhile, and we are looking forward to return again next year,” said Mr. Thong Poh Wah, Director (PR), Asia Pacific Marketing & Strategy Department from Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

“Sennheiser has been exhibiting at BroadcastAsia annually to meet new customers, and to renew business relationships. The show is also a good branding platform for us with visitors from around the world.  This year we’ve seen good visitorship at our booth and we’re pleased with the results,” said Mr. Mervin Wang, Head of Marketing Services, Sennheiser Asia.

“Fiji TV will be setting up new TV stations and are looking at purchasing new equipment such as digital broadcast cameras.  With a budget of around US$2million, we are also looking for new suppliers to replace our aging equipment especially transmitters and satellites.  Here at BroadcastAsia and CommunicAsia, I get to hold valuable and quality meetings with exhibitors. My first trip here is definitely a very fruitful one,” explained Mr. Ken Clark, General Manager International, Fiji TV.

Future of communications discussed at conferences and workshops

The CommunicAsia2010 Summit and BroadcastAsia2010 International Conference featured over 150 conference sessions and workshops and an impressive line-up of over 200 veteran industry speakers from leading companies and organisations.  The conferences addressed various pertinent issues and challenges affecting the ICT, broadcasting and media industries and provided trade visitors with valuable insights on industry trends and growth opportunities.  Over 1,400 speakers and delegates participated in the CommunicAsia2010 Summit, BroadcastAsia2010 International Conference and the Creative Content Production Conference.

CommunicAsia2011 and BroadcastAsia2011 will be held at new venues Marina Bay Sands and Suntec Singapore respectively from 21 – 24 June 2011